Chicken liver comes to mind.

Muscle meat is highly incomplete nutrition.  At a minimum, there
should be organ meat and some vegeatable supplements.  Natural cat
food is entire mouse, offal and last meal included.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)
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somewhere in the body or they will be automatically rejected.

Wrong.  That's not what he was engineered to eat.  Cats do not eat the
muscles of an animal and then leave it.  There are an a.s ton of nutrients
in the heart, liver, intestines, stomach, etc of the animal.  That's what
kitty was designed to eat.

I won't get into the raw diet bashing here... but this point needs to be
raised:

Unless you have the raw diet you are providing analysed by laboratory
just how do you know your cat is getting all the recommended minimum
levels of nutrients as set out by AAFCO?

Those nutrients at those minimum levels are ESSENTIAL for feline life to
exist in a healthy manner.

Yes, you absolutely will need to add other things to the raw meat, in order
to make sure that George is getting all the vitamins and minerals that he
needs. Very shortly you will see him acting like a kitten again, on the raw
diet. Here are complete directions;
http://www.catfood.catnutrition.org/

Thanks to all who responded. Several made points that seem logical and
I have added them to my own thoughts, e.g., not feeding just muscle
meat but organs as well. I was going to stop by the Safeway the other
day but that hasn't happened yet. When I do go I intend to look for
chicken and turkey guts.

As for analyzing his diet, forget that. As one person mentioned, she
has never had her own diet analyzed and she felt she was doing fine.
Ditto for me. Of course, we have to realize that we humans are able to
open refrigerator and freezer doors to select what we feel like
eating, and we have a vast variety available to us. Old George won't
have as many choices, so I have to spend a bit more time feeding him
stuff that is good for him. At the same time, I don't intend to be a
nut about it. He probably doesn't have a year left to live, even if he
gets the very best possible nutrition. He's old, arthritic and
approaching the end of his life. I know that. He has never had a home
and I just wanted him to have a real place with someone to take care
of him for what time he has left. Right now it's cold out and he's
curled up in a chair by the fire. His arthritis is so bad that he has
a hard time laying down on his side, probably from years being
outdoors all winter long. At least now he can be comfortable.

I do more or less follow the logic of what an animal would eat in the
wild. Nevertheless, that isn't necessarily what is good for them. For
example, our human taste buds respond very well to sweets, fats and
salt. That is because during our evolution those were hard to come by
and having a desire for them was a positive survival point. In today's
world we have to use our intellect to curb our desire for those
things, as they can be fatal if consumed in the quantities our taste
buds want.

In addition, we humans develop eating habits, starting even in
childhood. If we develop bad habits as a child we can have serious
issues as we age. Old George has a similar problem. Frankly, he
prefers french fries and canned chili to cat food. He wants to eat
human food. That's because all his life he has survived on handouts
and what he could find in open garbage cans. That's what he thinks
food is supposed to taste like. He has horrible eating habits. He's
not going to get garbage like that from me, but I have to deal with
the fact that he frequently turns up his nose at food that is good for
him. And he's so skinny that if he likes chicken muscle meat and he'll
eat a lot of it, I'd sooner let him have it than try to force him to
eat something he doesn't like just because it's better for him.

So thanks for the suggestions. Some of you have given me some ideas
that will help.

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